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Sotomayor passes committee 13-6

From NBC's Ken Strickland and Domenico MontanaroAs expected, the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning voted 13-6 in favor of Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a mostly party-line vote, except for Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who voted to confirm.

As we noted in First Thoughts this morning, "By comparison, John Roberts' Judiciary vote was 13-5, and Samuel Alito's was 10-8."

Sotomayor is on track to be confirmed by the full Senate by Aug. 7. If the committee vote is any indication, Sotomayor's full Senate vote is likely to be somewhere between that of Alito and Roberts. With a slim Republican majority in 2006, Alito was confirmed 58-42. (Just four Democrats voted for him.) In 2005, Roberts was confirmed by a much wider margin, 78-22, with Democrats about split.